Investment

When we see the word investment, probably 9 times out of 10 we start thinking about money.  However, this word has come to have so much meaning beyond the context of money as I continue to grow my family.  Investment is a word that I often ponder when I think about my kids.  Investment in time, investment in patience, investment in learning, investment in listening, investment in all the intangible ways.  

Since having kids I have become accutely aware of the areas of my life that I wished family had invested more of their time, patience, energy, listening, and I could go on, in me.  It's been the coolest experience to identify those things that I wished had been for me and then channel them into my own parenting/adulting.  Taking the time to invest in listening to my 4 year olds crazy dreams and made up worlds.  Taking a moment to pause and just appreciate both little lives that God has gifted me.  It's not lost on me that they are the greats gifts and to teach them gratefulness means I must show it to them first.

It has also recently come to my attention that we can be so full of opinions that we think we need to share every single one.  However, I would pose that its the opinions we keep to ourselves and allow others to reflect, revel, play make believe with their own thoughts, that really gives way to an existence where we can all appreciate our differences more lovingly and deliberately.  

A passage from my most recent read, "In a pit with a lion on a snowy day, by Mark Batterson," he talks about, "The way we grow up spiritually is by becoming more and more like little children."  Wow, what a wake up call.  All this aging and wisdom is for not if we don't know how to stay childlike, opinion-less.  I appreciated this reminder so much today.  As it reminded me to invest in my kids not from this place of self-righteousness, and "oh look at me and all that I have done and how I made and am making myself in this world."  Rather flipping that mind set on its head and taking the time to learn from them just as much as they are learning from me.

I have come to find that true investment happens when it is reciprocal.  Not only do you put in but you get out.  And you don't just get out what you put in.  So many times I get back so much more than I could have fathomed putting in.  Our kids are untainted, innocent opportunities that can reshape our tainted, bitter, misguided, fearful adult lives.  So why not take that step back and rethink investment?